


The Clipper's Apprentice (Chronicles of Gideon, #1)

by littleredbutterfly



Category: Into the Badlands (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cross-Posted on Wattpad, Gen, No Romance, Not a Crossover, Original Character-centric, Pre-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-11 05:05:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11707395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleredbutterfly/pseuds/littleredbutterfly
Summary: "You need a new name. A Baron's name. ... Gideon. My Clippers shall know you as Gideon. Their champion."I was eleven years old, and with those words, I became someone else. A fighter. A killer. A catalyst.Everyone knew it was only a matter of time before Baron Quinn's son and heir, Ryder, stabbed his father in the back in a bid for his lands. Who better to protect him than another son -- one with no ambition, one whose loyalties he could shape with pretty promises? A Cog bastard. Like me.I'm fifteen now. I've fought for my father. I've killed for him. I've seen what lies beyond his borders. And now, undercover in the seediest underworld in the Badlands, I've begun to question if I really owe him anything, after all....(This is not a crossover fic, but the title and basic premise were inspired by Robin Hobb's "Assassin's Apprentice")





	1. I.

"A history of any Baronage is, by necessity, a history of it's rulers."

 _Click. Squeak. Click. Squeak._ I tried to focus on the Baron's words, rather than the sounds his shoes made on the floor and the floor made under his shoes, but I couldn't manage to meet his eyes, and without meeting his eyes most of his words were lost to me.

"How did the ruling family come to power? How did they stay there? Who had to die first?"

I had to focus on something. The opulence of the Manor, after spending all my short years in the fields, was overwhelming. I wanted to curl into a ball to escape it, but I knew he wouldn't take kindly to that, so instead I found a tiny, tiny detail to train my senses on: the _click, squeak, click, squeak_ of his shoes and the floor.

"Are you listening to me, boy?"

I nodded, looking to the side in deference. "I'm listening, sir."

"Boy. Look at me when I speak to you."

I raised my head — though it seemed to weigh a thousand pounds — keeping my shaking hands folded at my waist. That was how you approached a man of authority, Mama had always told me, and what man had greater authority over the poppy fields than this one?

"That's better. You have lovely eyes, boy, beautiful dark eyes." I swallowed hard, nodded my head.

"Th-thank you, sir. Baron. Thank you, Baron."

"Oh, now, now, boy, are you afraid of me?" He patted my shoulder, squeezed it, a gesture both frightening and almost fatherly. "Be honest with me now."

I nodded again. "Yes, Baron."

"Good. Fear can be an advantage, especially out in those fields. Fear can be a weapon, too, and I think that answers my second question. The ruling family stays in power by keeping their enemies afraid. And to do that, well, that brings us to my third question. To hold onto power, sometimes, somebody has to die."

My heart went cold at those words. "Is that...is that why I'm here, sir?" I asked quietly. "Do I...do I need to....?"

"Oh! Boy!" He squeezed my shoulder again — shaking me a bit this time — and he chuckled. "I wouldn't think of it. You're here, my boy, because I want to train you. You know who the Clippers are?"

Nod.

"You know what they do?"

Nod.

"You ever wanted to be one?"

I was supposed to say yes. He was waiting for me to say yes. Wasn't it every young field boy's dream, be selected as a Colt, trained for the most elite army in the Badlands? But in my young, frightened mind, I was sure he could sense if I was lying. "No, sir."

"Oh, nonsense, boy, of course you do. Anyone would want that. Better lodging, better food, better respect.... Who wouldn't want that?"

"I do want that," I admitted. "But I don't know how to fight, Baron. I don't know how to kill."

"Well, that's what we have to train you for!" He grinned widely, but his voice was low and mad as he said, "This isn't a question you can say no to, boy."

I knew it wasn't. I'd known since the moment the hard-eyed man in red came to drag me from the fields, from my mother's side, that there would be no going back. I'd asked him where he was taking me, and why, and all he'd say was "To the Manor. Baron's orders. Stop asking questions."

"I'm only eleven, sir," I said. "Isn't that too young to be trained?"

"They're my Clippers, boy. They'll train who I tell them to train." "And my mother?" He smiled again, this time with teeth. His teeth were white, whiter than anyone's I'd ever seen, but where there were stains — tobacco stains, opium stains, stains of who-knew-what-other-vice — he couldn't hide them. "Your mother will be well taken care of, boy. Your mother, in fact, can have anything you want for her, and you can have anything you want for yourself...if you can prove yourself to me. Will you do that?"

"I think so."

"No. No thinking so. Either you will or you won't. Will you prove yourself to me, boy, or won't you?"

My mother's face filled my mind. I could save her. I could get her out of the fields, away from burning sun and calloused hands, to a life that was truly worth living. I lifted my head. "I will."

"Good. Good!" I wished he would take his hand off my shoulder. Why was his hand on my shoulder? Why he was behaving like this? Was this how he treated all his Clippers, like some twisted version of family? "I guess I'll need something to call you," he said, "other than 'boy.' What did your mother call you?"

"She.... She called me Poppy, sir."

"Did she, now?"

"Yes, sir. She said...." I had to swallow the lump in my throat as I remembered what my mother said to me. "She said I was like the flowers. Small. Breakable. Beautiful. And just one, in a whole field of children like me." "

And that's where she was wrong, boy. Those children at your side, in the fields, were nothing like you." He shook his head. "No, you need another name. A Baron's name. Hm." He clicked his heels against the floor, a rapid-fire sound that left no room for the hardwood to squeak. "Gideon," he said decisively. "My Clippers will know you as Gideon. And as he was God's champion, you shall be mine."

I didn't want to be their champion. I didn't want to be anyone's champion, anyone's killer. I wanted to go back to my own life. _Think of Mama_ , I reminded myself, and I made myself stand straight, accepting my new name with bravery and dignity.

"Baron?" My voice came out just a little stronger this time. A little louder. Perhaps the name was a hallmark of strength, after all.

"Yes, Gideon?"

"Why me? Why do you want me for a Clipper?"

"You never knew your father, did you?" he asked.

I shook my head, wondering what that had to do with anything. Plenty of Cogs grew up without one parent or other, and they stayed Cogs all their life. "No, Baron. Mam-- my mother doesn't like to talk about him."

This time, there were no teeth in his sideways smile, and somehow it was even more unnerving that way. Baron Quinn, the man I'd spent my whole life fearing -- the man I knew could be my death with a word -- knelt to look me in the eye. " _I'm_ your father, Gideon. And I couldn't have my own son growing up a mere field-hand, now could I?" He rose, mussing my hair as he went, and strode out of the room.

_Click. Squeak._


	2. Chapter 2

I couldn’t breathe. The room reeled around me, and now I could find nothing to focus on. I’d been overwhelmed since the moment the hard-eyed man came to collect me, and what Quinn told me was the last straw.  
I fainted. When I woke, I was lying on a hard mattress, in a darkened room.  
“Welcome home, boy.”  
The voice belonged to the man who’d taken me from the fields, the first words I’d heard him say since “Stop asking questions.” His arms were bare, and I could see the dozens of marks that covered them, like a second skin.  
“Sit up.”  
I did. “Who are you?”  
“I’m called Sunny.”  
“‘Sunny?’” I echoed. “Your name is Sunny?”  
“Yours is ‘Poppy.’ Or it was. You have no room to talk.”  
The words Or it was sent a bolt of grief through my heart, and hot tears stung my eyes.  
“Don’t cry,” Sunny ordered, stern and emotionless as ever. I wondered if I would ever hear or see anything different from him. I guessed not. “You’re a Clipper now, Gideon. Clippers don’t cry.”  
I nodded fiercely, swallowing my tears. There would be time to mourn my old life, my lost life, later. I had to focus on getting through the coming…days? Months? Years? I didn’t how long it would take to prove myself to Baron Quinn, but I knew I would do it. If it took me the rest of my life, I would do it. For Mama.  
“Quinn wants me to train you personally. I won’t go easy on you. We’ll begin tomorrow, but for now I’m going to get some sleep and you should too.”  
“Sunny?” I asked as he rose to leave.  
“Yes?”  
“Is Baron Quinn really my father?”  
Yes, his expression could change. At my question, it turned to a ferocious glare. “How would I know?”  
I shrugged helplessly. “He trusts you. I thought maybe —”  
“Listen, kid. There’s only one man Quinn really trusts, and that’s Quinn. He trusts me because he controls me. He owns me. He knows I can’t betray him. But no, he didn’t tell me about you, if that’s what you’re getting at.”  
“Oh.”  
“But, I don’t think he has any reason to lie. Not outright. Either he really is your father or he chooses to believe he is.”  
I wanted to ask what that meant, but the look in Sunny’s eyes told me he was done taking questions.  
“Now, go to sleep.”  
I knew I wouldn’t sleep that night. Not a wink. Nevertheless, I put my head down — the pallet I lay on was even more uncomfortable than the one I had in the Cogs’ dwellings — and closed my eyes. That seemed to satisfy him, and when I opened my eyes again, Sunny was gone.  
I curled in on myself, wishing I could make myself smaller — smaller and smaller and smaller until I vanished completely. Tears rose to my eyes again, and this time I couldn’t stop them. I let them come, biting down on my fists to muffle my sobs.  
In what felt like a moment (and even in reality was mere hours), the world I knew had vanished entirely, replaced by a cold new one. And it was on the Baron’s orders, so there was nothing I could do to argue with it. I would be a Clipper. I would learn to fight, learn to kill, and when the time came I would kill.  
I would become like Sunny. A hard-eyed man in a red jacket, every visible inch of my skin marked in black. A man whose very life was owned by my Baron.  
Quinn had laughed when I asked if I was going to die, as if the very idea was ridiculous. In truth, though, I did die that day. Not in body — my heart continued to beat its usual rhythm — but the boy who small and breakable and beautiful and anonymous, the boy who was Poppy, he was no more.  
Gideon had come to take his place.  
Eventually, I fell asleep, my eyes raw from crying and bite marks still smarting on my knuckles.  
I was woken by the sound of a bell. It was a familiar sound — a bell much like it had woken us every morning in the fieldworkers’ barracks — but louder than the one I remembered, and earlier, too. I started awake, nearly falling out of bed, and before I could register where I was I was being dragged to my feet. A bundle was shoved into my arms, an unfamiliar voice commanding “Put those on.”  
I obeyed. The boots were too heavy and the trousers were too big, though I quite liked the shirt. It was the uniform of a trainee; I was surrounded by a couple dozen other boys wearing the exact same garb.  
It was nice to be anonymous again.  
It didn’t last long, though. I was pulled from the little room where I’d slept and pushed into a line of boys, and we were herded into what I guessed was a dining hall: a hot stone room with paper-covered windows, empty but for two long wooden tables. I was completely lost, I had no idea where to go or what to do, but I went along with it. I sat on the far end of one long table, keeping my head down and eating my mushy breakfast in silence.  
That didn’t keep me from being noticed.  
“Hey, you! Newboy!”  
I kept my head down, hoping whoever was calling would go away if I ignored him.  
He didn’t.  
“Newboy! Yeah, I’m talking to you, y’ little shit! Don’t ignore me!”  
I ignored him.  
He threw something at my head — a pebble, probably, scooped up from the dirty ground. I looked up to see a mean-looking boy, years older than me, with a red scrape on his cheek, sneering at me. “Who’re you?” he asked.  
“My name is Gideon.”  
“Gideon, huh? What the hell ’re you doing in Clipper school? We don’t train six-year-olds.”  
“I’m eleven.”  
“Oh-ho! He’s eleven, is he? Well, don’t expect us to go easy on you, lil’ punk. You’re one of us now.”  
“No, he ain’t.” Another boy appeared at his shoulder — same age, same rough appearance, same malicious sneer. “Not yet he ain’t. We gotta initiate him first.”  
My throat went dry. “Initiate me? What’s that mean?”  
The first boy laughed evilly. “Oh, you’ll see,” he said. “He’ll see, won’t he, Edwin?”  
“He’ll see,” Edwin agreed.  
Another loud bell sounded, and as one the boys at the tables rose and filed out. I followed them, chewing my final bites of mush on my way out the door.  
They herded outside, into a sunken courtyard — a pit, the Pit. I’d heard boys in the field talk about it, about the brutal fights that occurred there, as young fighters were prepared for the job of a Clipper.  
“Boys!” An older man, grizzled and scarred, stood at the top of the Pit, commanding our attention.  
He gave us orders, but I heard none of them.  
All I could focus on was Edwin and his friend, glaring wickedly at me from across the courtyard. Edwin’s lips moved, forming words I only just made out.  
“Watch your back.”


End file.
